


Entanglement

by itsaquinnquinnsituation



Series: X Years Later [15]
Category: Newcastle (2008)
Genre: Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 03:09:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3512999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsaquinnquinnsituation/pseuds/itsaquinnquinnsituation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eleven years later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entanglement

**Author's Note:**

> None of the characters or the plot of the original movie belong to me. I am not making money off my work, which is written for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> This is my universe and exactly how I see it. Writing should be enjoyed, not judged.
> 
> Well, this is a weird one. Ironically, the way I saw this kept changing over and over as I was writing it. It's very long, but don't skip to the end.  
>    
> I highly recommend everyone to watch this movie.

“Christ!”

His heart was racing.

It wasn’t so much the darkness though, it was the noise.

 

He blinked his eyes, took a big gulp of air, tugged at the hem of his dressy black shirt and walked on. He just wasn’t expecting them, that’s all. It was an unusually quiet street for such a lively neighbourhood but its narrowness and lack of parking spots made it an unpopular route for those looking for something – or someone – to pass away the hours of the weekend night. And these bastards just flew out from nowhere, blinded him with their headlights, and honked and screamed like uncouth cavemen. His heart did a summersault, then dropped down into his gut. Halting for a fraction of a second, he saw two young male faces split by laughing grimaces and a couple more backs of heads with bleached blonde hair flapping in the wind – before the humongous dilapidated jeep disappeared around a corner, the sounds of their shrieks and yelping slowly fading into the night…

He had almost another kilometre to walk.

 

 

Jesse had informed him earlier that he did not want to wait for him to find a parking spot for his tiny old Toyota and requested that Fergus drop him off two blocks from the club. Fergus was, quite frankly, nearly dumbstruck by such subterfuge because old Jesse would have simply told him that he did not want to be seen anywhere near his twin. Must have been recent developments that had caused him to acquire these new and unusual habits. 

Fergus paused just by the door, pretending to be checking his phone whilst he took another deep breath of air, mentally willing his heart to slow down, then, put his hands into the pockets of his skinny grey jeans and walked in.

The music instantly deafened him. His heart jumped into his throat and he exploded in such a violent fit of coughing that his eyes became inundated with tears. He feverishly looked around, making sure that nobody was paying him any attention, pretended to check his phone again, and went into the club’s gut.

He began scanning the scene for Jesse immediately after having purchased his drink at the bar on the second floor. He soon noticed him with a relief – Jesse was lingering aimlessly at the wall farthest from Fergus – but, of course, Fergus was not to approach him under any circumstances. “And don’t you stand there and stare at me like a creep” – Jesse warned him on several occasions, - “I catch you doing it and I’ll come give you one in the mouth!” 

And that’s alright, really, Fergus was not planning on following his brother on a leash, he was just going to park himself somewhere in the corner, from which he could keep a discreet eye on him, nursing his drink and pretending to be surfing the web on his phone. 

He took to carrying an extra battery on outings such as this. An iPhone can only take so many hours of abuse. And Fergus did need it desperately. Without it, he would actually have to look around the dance floor or maybe, fake enjoying the music, or anything else that could get him noticed. And he wanted to be noticed, sure, but… he didn’t. That’s why he usually dressed in black or grey. These colours suited him, but they also made him blend into corners and walls. If he couldn’t take advantage of the way his sleek black shirt fitted his very thin body and matched his shiny black hair, he could at least dissolve into the nearest solid vertical surface and possibly allow his vampiric black eyes to throw superficial glances at the moving mess of the crowd. He wasn’t so dumb of course, not to realise that his behaviour was at the very least pointless, but what do they call it – the hierarchy of needs – was a real thing. Plus tonight, he had an excuse – who - from what Fergus could now observe, sequestered behind a hefty column with an unmanly light drink in his hand – was already engaging in the very activity that their parents had instructed Fergus to prevent.

He mentally shook his head and took a tiny sip through the narrow straw before switching the drink into the other hand and reaching into his jeans pocket for his amateur spy gear.

“Fergus!”

He jumped so high, he actually spilled a good fourth of his drink onto his shoes. A tiny chuckle ensued as a sweet female voice sounded:

“Oh, gosh, I am so sorry.”

Fergus smiled and blushed:

“That’s alright.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Ah…uhm…” – He blushed deeper without lifting his eyes at her and momentarily registered her glittery wedge shoes. In those shoes she was almost as tall as him.

“Oh, God, what is it with me?” – She laughed and slapped herself on the forehead, and Fergus instantly relaxed and even raised his face to hers, - “Rick must have slipped something in my drink!” – She laughed again and looked him over. He gave her a discreet once-over too, - “Well, don’t you look good!”

Fergus smiled again and tried to respond, but the way her eyes were glittering under the ceiling lights and the way her cheeks were so obviously flushed caused his voice to get stuck somewhere in his throat. It wasn’t because he was looking at her though, but because the presence of such a beautiful female next to him caused him to lose his ninja status. Semi-consciously, he moved deeper into the shadow of the column.

She didn’t notice:

“Well, how are ya? I mean, after the things they said at that meeting and all…?”

“Oh, God” – Fergus exhaled a chuckle and ran his hand through his hair, - “Uh… I mean, it sucked, but I…. Uh, I guess, you learn not to take those things to heart. It’s… it’s not like I can change anything…”

She seemed to absorb his words for a second, then nodded:

“True. I guess I am still too green to be thinking this way. I went home and was just like…” – She pouted her plump heavily glossed lips and made an open gesture with her elegant arms which caused several bracelets encircling her wrists to tangle in a brilliant slender mess, - “I probably would have been sulking all evening and stuffing my face with ice-cream and things… but Rick is in town, and so, as you can imagine…” – She looked at him with a conspiratorial smile and he laughed, losing the last of the anxiety that this chance meeting had caused him. 

“Where’s he?” – He asked.

“At the bar, ordering us something. Though as you can tell, I’ve already had some. We’d come from Planet because it was just empty and lame. I guess this is where the party is, huh?”

They both looked onto the dance floor then, and Fergus shrugged.

“Well, who are you here with?”

“No one” – The response came out of him so quickly and so mechanically that the girl turned to him in an instant. He shuffled his feet and corrected himself, - “With my brother. But I am not supposed to be really “with him”, if you know what I mean?”

She pressed her lips and nodded:

“But what is he doing here? I mean, didn’t you say that… that uh…” – She gestured with her hands again, beseeching his eyes for direction.

He relented:

“Yeah. He was only released on Wednesday last week. My parents, of course…” – He intended to elaborate on his feelings about them, but gave up and offered her only the bare facts, - “Just texted me two days ago and told me they were putting him on the plane. ‘Collect him at SYD at 18:45’, I am quoting verbatim. I don’t even know what the hell they are doing… they have to be someplace where they really cannot take him…” – He looked to her again and was met with saddened eyes.

“Oh, Fergus” – she half-whispered and he thought she was about to say how sorry she was to hear that, but she only shook her head, - “And how is he?”

“To be honest with you, I don’t think that it worked. I don’t really understand these programmes. Sure, they might free his body from physical dependence on a chemical, but that does not just automatically wipe out addictive behaviours from the memory of the brain” – He touched his forehead lightly and she nodded, - “Well, they are scared. My parents, I mean. I suppose they are doing the best they can, under the circumstances. Or so they are saying – I don’t really know. I know they are terrified he’ll end up like Victor. I know that, because *I am.*”

She looked on at him and only after she made a tiny jerking motion with her head without so much as blinking, that he realised his mistaken assumption.

“Oh, that’s uh.. I guess, I didn’t… Victor didn’t actually die because of… He… He went to jail on drug distribution charges, but it’s his violent behaviour that ultimately lead to the judge extending his sentence… and to him… uh… sinking into depression and committing suicide… I guess.”

“Oh, God” – She clamped her hand over her mouth and her eyes opened so wide so quickly, that Fergus impulsively thought she was going to faint. He moved to grab her by the arms:

“Oh, shit, Lena, I’m sorry!”

“No, no, it’s okay” – She moved a long blond lock out of her face and Fergus released her, - “I guess… I never knew exactly how he died…”

“Yeah, I… that was not a very good moment…”

“No, no that’s alright…” – She raised up her hand and he thought she was going to lower it down onto his arm and squeeze it, but she merely brushed another fair streak out of her face, - “So… but isn’t it… shouldn’t then… shouldn’t then… Jesse… *not* be… uh…. *not be* here?”

“Well, yeah” – Fergus sighed, but then, seeing her face, corrected himself, - “I mean, you are right. But it’s not like I can chain him. If I keep him at my place against his will, he might end up destroying my stuff or burning down my flat. I… I mean he cannot be trusted with anything. I guess that’s why my parents sent him down here whilst they are away for the weekend.”

“Wow” – Lena shook her head.

He felt like adding then, that the whole Victor thing and the whole Jesse issue was only part of the reason why he left Brisbane as quickly as the first opportunity presented itself, but was once again reminded that this was not a time and place for looking for sympathy as an early-thirties dark-haired man approached them, calling Lena’s name. He was carrying two identical tall glasses filled with frothy orange liquid. He had a very rough rectangular face and his nose scrunched up as he smiled, wide mouth showing big square teeth:

“You won’t believe who I just met! Remember that guy I was with on Royal Majestic…?”

Lena’s look must have interrupted him though, because he suddenly halted and noticed that she was not alone. He gave her one of his drinks and then turned to Fergus, the latter instinctively stepping back as the man took a step forward, stretching out both hands, right, holding the other tall glass, left one, empty. Fergus blinked and took another step back. Lena laughed. 

“Oh, excuse me!” – The man slapped himself on the forehead with his free left hand, then transferred the drink into it and again, stretched the right one out to Fergus, - “I got myself confused there for a second” – Fergus shook it, - “And you can have this one as well” – He offered him the drink.

All three laughed.

“That’s alright” – Fergus showed him his own half-finished glass. 

“My co-worker, Fergus” – Lena turned to the man, motioning at Fergus with her hand, and, putting the other one on the man’s shoulder, turned back to Fergus - “And this is Rick.”

“But you already knew that” – Rick noticed, nodding at Fergus and Fergus laughed:

“Your photo is on her desk.”

“Oh, that’s nice” – Rick smiled at Lena and Fergus noticed that he was definitely much shorter than her, even when she was not wearing those big bulky wedges. 

“She tells me only good things about you” – Fergus added. He wasn’t normally this relaxed around anyone, but whether it was the fact that he was drinking on an empty stomach, or the fact that he was already in the first stages of a nervous breakdown from all things that have transpired over the past week-and-a-half – the expression of “a calm before the storm” almost always holding true for Fergus when it came to situations like this – or the fact that this guy, Rick, looked like a little rectangular troll next to the gorgeous waify Lena, and – probably knew it too, yeah – and yet felt no jealousy upon finding her talking to Fergus – or maybe it was that he viewed Rick as an extension of Lena – and Lena has already earned her title as “safe.”

His thoughts were interrupted as he realised he was being talked to:

“…but talk. Do you people ever actually do any work?”

He managed to smile:

“Yeah, sometimes.”

“Is it as bad as what Lena tells me?”

“I… Can’t speak for HR but accounts are bad. We’re overwhelmed right now. If you can imagine sitting at your desk for eight hours a day staring at spreadsheets…”

“Oooh, I don’t want to imagine that!” - Rick covered his eyes with his hand in a rough gesture that made him look a bit like a sailor looking out onto distant land. 

It struck Fergus then, that Rick was, in fact, a sailor. And “Royal Majestic” he referred to just when he approached them was, most likely, a boat. That’s why Lena rarely mentioned hanging out with him. He wasn’t in town much. He wasn’t on land much. 

“Uhm, what in the world is this?” – Lena asked suddenly, releasing a straw from her lips and pointing to her drink with her eyes.

“I… don’t know actually” – Rick eyed the identical one in his own hand, then shrugged at her, - “I asked the bartender for something fruity. For you, not for myself. I wanted a rum.”

Fergus almost laughed out because it sounded so cliché for a sailor to be drinking rum. ‘Why is the rum gone?’ and all, you know?

“Oh, don’t laugh” – Rick turned and smiled at him good-naturedly, - “I know what you must be thinking. But I swear the bartender misheard me” – He once again proffered Fergus the other glass, - “Well, would you have it? I really am going to get me a rum.”

Fergus wondered for a split second if he should be offended that Rick was obviously not wanting to be seen drinking the orange concoction but thought the latter appropriate for Fergus, but then reminded himself that Rick was entirely nonplussed by his own amused response to the rum comment. So he graciously accepted. 

“… And I better do it now, before it gets crowded. This place is looking a madhouse tonight.”

Rick started to walk away, without any indication whether they should wait or follow, but then turned around and lifted his arm. Fergus thought he was going to slap it down onto his shoulder in a clichéd sailor-y way, asking him if he’d like to join him, but Rick… only waived instead. Then he disappeared into the crowd. When Fergus turned to Lena, she was looking just as puzzled as he was feeling. Her pretty lips made out carefully:

“Well, do you want to come with?”

“I…uh… don’t want to ruin your date!”

“It’s hardly a date, it’s just… we’re just dancing…” – She countered, unsure.

“I can’t dance for shit…”

“Neither can Rick.”

“But I am not yet… ” – He pointed with his eyes to his hands, now both occupied with tall drinking glasses – one being his own unfinished New Yorker, the other – Rick’s accidental orange Julius duplicate – and advised, - “You should go after him, though. It really is getting crowded. It will take him forever to get back over here through all these people.”

She turned to see whether she still had her boyfriend in sight, which, thanks to her height, she probably did, then turned back to Fergus, looking suddenly relieved:

“Listen, you drink up, alright? I’ll come find you in a few, and then we’ll *really* dance!” – She smiled at him and proceeded to follow Rick into the depths of the club.

Fergus followed her with his gaze. However it ended, it felt good running into her, it really did. He liked her. They’d met at a company meeting only some three months ago, but he was already sure he liked her. She was nice. She was the first person since his time in high school who appeared to be able to see past his steel walls of insecurities and fear. Now, the fact that she was probably just tired of her female friends, who, Fergus surmised, were almost sure to be at least somewhat envious of her nearly flawless beauty, mattered little. If she wanted a “GBF,” he was down to be one. It beat not being anyone’s “F” at all. 

 

Suddenly, his musings were interrupted. 

Jesse.

Good luck finding him now. 

Fergus felt sweat materialize on his forehead as he frantically looked around. They had been moved away from the column in the course of their conversation, but even after he desperately made his way back to the exact spot where he stood just before meeting Lena, he could see no sign of Jesse.

Fergus was sure Jesse was still somewhere in the club. It was not in Jesse’s best interests to try to escape. 

For one, Jesse had almost no money. That’s how their parents sent him. He probably whined and freaked out at them just as bad as he did at Fergus not even four hours ago when Fergus was collecting him from Sydney aeroport, but Fergus refused to budge. It was better to deal with his tantrum then, than to be scraping his vomit-doused body off of the sidewalk later. Or to have to bail him out of jail. Whichever came first. 

And for two, Jesse had no friends in Sydney. Sure, there was a possibility he could run into some surfer kids he’d met at this or that tournament, or any other people he could possibly know, but Jesse has never lived in Sydney. Jesse has never lived anywhere, besides Brisbane. He once, unsuccessfully, tried to move in with Victor in Newcastle, after the latter went down there when Fergus was already in his last year of college, ostensibly after his ex-girlfriend and their daughter, and, also ostensibly, to join their extended family, but really – to be free from the nagging of his mother and stepdad. And Newcastle was also where Victor landed in jail and, later, died. And his death was the reason why their mother was now never going to let Jesse roam around unattended. 

Well, as for Fergus, he fared slightly better. He got through college holding on to his sanity by a fragile thread. Living at home was a nightmare – Jesse’s drug induced rage, Victor’s bar fights, street fights, you-name-it-fights, their mother’s frantic calls to the police and Victor’s girlfriend, their father slipping in and out of alcohol-induced comas, himself going as far as slashing his wrists at the end of his second year – that one was pretty bad, he had to admit, not only did he lose so much blood that he was within minutes of permanent brain damage, but he had to later get himself reinstated in college and redo the entire semester – but only after two long summer months spent in a psychiatric institution. 

Which was, as it happened, in Newcastle. 

 

Victor was still alive then, but he was still living in Brisbane. So Fergus got sent to Newcastle because taking care of him *and* Jesse *and* Victor was getting a bit much for their parents. So after Fergus got reasonably securely stitched up and healed, he was put on the plane much in the same manner Jesse was put on the plane to Sydney earlier that afternoon. Only Fergus’ destination was his grandfather’s home in Newcastle. Or so he thought. Because he ended in a completely different place. 

He didn’t like to remember his time in that hospital, really. It embarrassed him. He knew he ought not to feel bad for the things that have happened to him at home, but he felt horrified that he allowed his thoughts to spiral down so low that he almost succeeded in ending his life.  
He was clammed up during his first days at the hospital, including when his grandfather came over to visit. He didn’t know the man all that well – his family was never the one to nurture blood ties - and so the conversations felt awkward and forced. Fergus may never have opened up and allowed his soul to be healed and his mind to climb out of the deep abyss it was in, if not for one special person. 

Her name was Alina. 

He could no longer remember her last name, but he could never forget her eyes. Rather nondescript common grey in colour, but full of feeling that was unfamiliar to Fergus. 

She was the nurse who succeeded in persuading Fergus to take his medication and eat without the feeding tube. 

She would just come into his hospital room quietly and, instead of standing over him, or sitting down in the chair, would lower herself down just at the edge of his bed. He’d turn away, but she would not get up. Sometimes, she reached out to hold his hand or stroke his arm. He felt like pushing away at the beginning – in fact, he probably did - more than once - but that never stopped her from coming back again and again, sitting down with him, looking at him, waiting on him. She didn’t talk to him – she was not supposed to – she was only a nurse and was there to care for his physical needs, not mental, but it were only her short visits to his room that allowed him to get through that awful summer. He probably would have been there much longer, if it were not for her. 

He didn’t know anything about her, besides her name. He heard her talk to other nurses and noticed an uncommon accent – which, he thought, sounded Eastern European – maybe Russian, Bulgarian, or Polish - and he liked it because he could always tell when she was near. She never pushed him to do anything. Never threatened him with sedatives or with the tube. Just sat there at the foot of his bed, for five minutes, or ten, patiently, in silence. He would refuse to take his pills in the beginning, and she would get up and exit. Then another nurse would come in and force him. But Alina never did. Fergus guessed that she couldn’t bear it.

And once, when she was sitting like that in his room, she took his hand and turned it over, exposing his ravaged scarred wrist. He thought of yanking it away but when he looked up at her, he could swear he could see tears in her eyes. She squeezed his hand then and said very, very quietly, barely above a whisper:

“I have a son. He is your age. I wish you also could be…”

She didn’t finish. Fergus wasn’t sure she realised she was talking out loud. And he knew just what she was thinking. He wasn’t certain why she was feeling the way that she was about him, but he sure as hell was feeling the same about her. After all, his own mother never came to sit at his bedside. His own mother never visited him in that hospital at all. 

Alina moved to get up then, but he grabbed onto her hand. And then released it, turning his own hand over, palm up. She silently placed a pill in it and he chugged it down with half-a-glass of water that he had at his bedside. She looked at him then with her kind grey eyes, and her lips stretched only so much in a smile. It was a sad smile, a muted smile, but a smile nonetheless, and a smile that made Fergus’ day, a smile, the memory of which allowed him to overcome his disgust and repulsion as he slowly shoved lukewarm porridge into his mouth later at dinnertime that night. 

 

He talked for hours with his psychiatrist after that day and until his release. He never said anything more than “thank you” to Alina. Nothing the psychiatrist has ever said, has done anything for him. Alina’s mere presence changed his view of himself and the world. Psychiatrist signed his release papers and allowed him back into the free world. Alina had rescued and remoulded his soul. 

Alina was not working on the day Fergus was signed out and collected. He did not have a chance to tell her “goodbye”. He hoped it meant they would meet again. And, he hoped, under much happier circumstances.

He never saw her again, but he never forgot her. When he finally graduated college, he tried to see if he could update her on his progress and thank her for what she did for him way back then. He called in to the Newcastle mental hospital, but was told that she no longer worked there. He didn’t pursue the search.

 

After his stint at the hospital, he went back to finish college in Brisbane. His mental state had improved, but his family life didn’t. Jesse had stolen and sold several pieces of electronic equipment from their own house, including Fergus’ laptop, which set him back another semester at college. Jesse wasn’t jailed then, and in fact, not until he was caught buying drugs from a minor. The times that Jesse spent in jail were, unfortunately, the calmest ones at the house. And when he was finally released, just after Fergus’ graduation, Fergus was so horrified, he tripled his job-searching efforts, and when he got an interview offer for an accounts payable job in Sydney, he packed two huge suitcases and spent the entire flight time in prayer. 

His hope wasn’t misplaced. He didn’t return to Brisbane for nine months. 

He hated his job. The mindless data entry drove him insane. It quickly became his habit to come home and fall onto his narrow bed with his eyes closed - and he kept them closed until he could no longer see the stream of numbers on the backs of his eyelids. Sometimes, he never did, and he fell asleep just like that, in his clothes. He struggled with headaches almost daily, so much so, that his stomach lining was bleeding from frequent use of anti-inflammatories and on days when his head didn’t hurt, he did not feel himself. He abused coffee mercilessly. He frequently forgot to eat. He had no appetite at all, to be sure. He lost that long ago, even before the feeding tube. But it was precisely the thought of his time at the hospital that kept him eating. Every time he felt like skipping dinner again, he thought of Alina. He thought of the way she looked at him the day she turned over his wrist. He was just skin and bones, but he had never allowed himself to slip into a hypoglycemic coma. He was still in control. He may have been teetering on the edge, but was not falling in. 

And about his wrists. The right one turned out all right – he was never too good with his left hand, but the left one still looked like one major crime scene. He always wore long sleeves and had a custom-made watch band – so wide and ugly that he hated to look at it, but it was still better than wearing a cast and constantly lying about having carpal tunnel syndrome. Those scars were never going to go away. But, he supposed, some scars never did.

His hopes of never coming back to Brisbane were thwarted by Victor’s death in Newcastle. Though he died and was cremated in jail, their family transported the ashes back to his hometown. And after that, part II of the nightmare began. Jesse was the main star in this one. 

Long story short, there he was. Twenty-nine years old, but feeling some decades older. With the same data entry job that brought him to Sydney. In the same tiny flat with a narrow bed. With no friends except this new hope for Lena. With nothing but an extra battery for his iPhone to hide his lack of social skills and his insurmountable anxiety when talking to others. With nothing but a dying glimmer of hope that somewhere, somehow, he might encounter someone, who, just like Alina, might find it in him, to care for such a train wreck as himself…

 

 

He was pushing frantically through the crowd. Seven calls and three text messages to Jesse over the past half-an-hour went unanswered. Fergus’ heart was beating in his ears and making his whole head pulsate and his vision swim. At one point he felt so dizzy, he had actually leaned on someone behind his back, some tall burly lad who was barely moving, and stayed like that until he could finally see through the blackness and resume his search – luckily, the human door post never noticed.

He’d managed to traverse about half the dance floor without incident, but upon entering the informal “passageway” just off to the side, he got pushed so hard from behind that he flew almost a metre until nearly knocking an oncoming lad off his feet. They didn’t fall, but Fergus spilled both of his drinks that he was still holding – a few drops of his half-finished clear New Yorker – onto the floor; and most of his neon-orange Julius – which was still untouched – onto the lad’s light-grey tank top.

The lad halted. Several people rammed into him from behind as the passageway became jammed, and the lad tripped and yelped out. Fergus felt his heart leap into his voicebox.

“What the fuuuuck?” – The lad began screaming so loudly that Fergus became so completely deafened for a few seconds, that he heard nothing of what came out of the lad’s mouth next, but he could tell by the way his lips were moving that all these things were unkind and obscene. He had a very handsome face, this lad did, with soft, rounded features, framed by long bleached-out locks, but it became so disgustingly distorted with anger that it terrified Fergus. The lad proceeded to push Fergus squarely in the chest but the impact of this spilled the second half of the orange Julius all over the lad’s hands and arms. His big eyes widened unnaturally and his mouth contorted and Fergus barely even had time to see the clenched fist coming his way.

But it never collided with his face.

If everything until then had been happening as if in slow-motion, everything after that moment sped up. Suddenly, all the sounds were back and all the people were moving all around him.

“Stop it! Scotty, Scotty, stop it!” – were the first words he heard just as he saw the victim of his spillage incident attempt to lunge at him again. He finally saw that what arrested Scotty the first time – and was preventing him from succeeding again – was a tan arm hooked around his chest, having effectively locked his hands in. The lad jerked against his restrictor again, but whoever held onto him, did so quite tight, because Scotty merely howled like an injured wolf:

“Let go off me! Let me go!”

“Not here, Scotty, stop it! Scotty, not here! Scotty, stop!” – the same voice continued to hiss, attempting to pull Scotty backwards towards him, but before Fergus had a chance to look at who had taken to defending him, another tall athletic blond lad swerved out from behind Scotty and jabbed Fergus in the bicep so hard that he fell into a small group of girls nearby, dropping both of his drinks on the ground and shattering the glasses. 

The girls started to squeal, peeling away from him and causing him to slide down to the ground.

“Kick him!” – He heard Scotty shriek.

“Goddamn, Nathan, what is wrong with you?!” – He saw the arm, which had until then been holding onto Scotty, start to let go, as its owner, yet a third tall blond lad appeared into view, already extending his other arm out to hold back the second. And there was still a fourth blond, staring down at Fergus with poorly hidden malice. ‘God, how many of these clones are there out here?’ – Fergus thought, horrified, trying to crawl backwards on the floor like a crab and hide behind long naked legs in high, pointy heels. 

Then, Scotty lunged at him again. 

Fortunately, the third blond had still enough of his hold over Scotty’s chest to prevent him from reaching Fergus, but the momentum of Scotty’s lunge sent the lad crashing onto the ground on his hands and knees, landing him right into the mess of glistening shards next to Fergus. 

The girls continued to squeal. Fergus heard so many voices, male and female, so many chunks of phrases, most of them nonsensical, that his head began to spin.

Scotty did not advance towards him anymore, in fact, he turned around and pushed the second blond in the chest, turning him, then pushing him into the back. The fourth blond attempted to awkwardly pull up the third one, but failed, though the latter did manage to stand up on his own and, as he was wearing shorts, Fergus could see tiny pieces of glass embedded into the skin of his knees, sparkling under the disco lights. Then suddenly everything went completely black. 

 

He came to when he heard someone yelling right into his ear.

He opened his eyes to find all the cloned blond lads gone and in fact, nobody around him except a burly tan male, whose very round face with comically styled moustache was hovering just over Fergus. 

He winced.

“I need you to stand up. Can you stand up?”

He saw the security guard straighten out and extend down his arm. He thought the guard was trying to help him get up, but when he looked up at his face he realised that the guard was no longer even looking at him anymore, but pointing to the area at the floor right next to him, in which a dust pan promptly appeared, operated by a female guard. Lifting himself up on his forearms, which immediately became prickled with shards of glass, and then, sitting up awkwardly, Fergus was finally able to stand up. The female guard used the floor dust brush to sweep the loose pieces of glass off his shirt and jeans. 

“What happened?”- The male guard asked without affront. With no witnesses in sight to discredit his testimony, Fergus’ course of action was clear.

“I tripped and fell.”

“Did you hit your head, yeah? You looked like you were passed out.”

“No, I just had the wind knocked out of me when I hit the floor.” – Fergus lied. It was only half of a lie though, because he didn’t strike his head as far as he knew. But he was pretty sure, he fainted.

“And all this glass?”

“I was carrying two drinks and I dropped them.” – He said quickly, jamming his hands into his pockets, - “I also collided with someone, but I guess he’s alright. I’m sorry about the mess.”

The male guarded looked at him with indifference, smacked his lips and grunted:

“And you shouldn’t be walking around this area with your drink. That’s what the bar area is for.”

“I am sorry.”

“Yeah, yeah” – the security man mocked him languidly, but stopped upon getting a look from the female, - “So you’re alright then?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Alright… well, then go away now, let Molly clean up.”

Fergus dashed to the bathroom. 

 

Once inside, he got into an empty stall, locked it and spent a good several minutes picking out shards of glass out of his hands that he didn’t even notice he’d crawled through in his desperate attempt to get away from an enraged blond lad named Scotty. Then he waited, until there were only four people left inside – about as good as it gets in a big club bathroom like this, to come out and shove his bleeding hands under the faucet. 

The cuts were small and shallow, but blood oozed and oozed and when he started feeling the looks of others on his back, he turned the faucet off and pressed a paper towel in-between his hands. Hiding his eyes under his over-grown ragged fringe, he slipped out of the mensroom. 

 

He stood by the door for a good ten minutes, just catching his breath and willing his heart not to race. He had a strange feeling that he knew them. Well, he didn’t know them maybe, per se, but he felt that he had certainly seen them. And not just because they may have been the same arseholes who had spooked him in a quiet street on his way down to the club, with their big ugly jeep and flashing headlights - in fact, he was almost sure it were them - but he felt that he’d seen them before that… and perhaps more than once. He couldn’t tell where, though, especially because they did not look like folks that could have gone to his college or worked at his firm or… or generally revolved in his social circle. His non-existent social circle, that is. They looked more like they could have been Jesse’s friends, rather, in fact, they all looked just like him. All four plus Jesse could have been like a set of cookies, cut and baked from one and same mould. From their bleached out locks, to their light t-shirts and tank tops, khaki shorts, and down to their flip-flops or sneakers which, Fergus was surprised, were allowed in this club. Each one of these blonds was more likely to be taken for Jesse’s twin than Fergus could ever be. 

Once the sizzling embarrassment of the spillage incident had somewhat dulled in his brain, his thoughts reverted to Jesse. ‘Don’t let him out of your sight’ – his mother instructed him. Sure, it was unlikely Jesse would find enough drugs to overdose in a club or jump off the third floor balcony or something equally idiotic, but then, Victor never did anything that stupid either. And yet, Victor was no longer alive. 

 

Fergus began his careful search for his brother all over again. He’d gone through the entire second floor – where he’d been all along, but found no signs of Jesse – or Rick and Lena – or the clones - for that matter. Meanwhile, the paper towel, he’d had jammed between his hands became crinkled and sticky and he had to revisit the mensroom to scrape it off his hands where the blood had already caked, and dab his hands with a fresh one. 

The third floor was negative for Jesse, but positive for Lena and Rick. They were on the balcony, but they were hardly enjoying the view. He’d almost missed them too and only recognised the couple by the way Lena had to lean down and twist her neck to be able to kiss her much shorter boyfriend. He promptly decided then, that if he ever got promoted to Lena’s GBF, his first advice for her would be to lose those wedges. 

He spent at least fifteen minutes on the third floor, not forgetting to scour out the mensroom, then returned to the second floor and searched through it again before setting out to the last and final place Jesse could be – the first floor. 

 

The area around the bottom and the stairs down to the first floor themselves were crowded, perhaps because there was another bathroom just under the staircase. People were walking up and down in a steady but somewhat slow stream, and Fergus was so engrossed in extending his neck as far up as he could in search for his brother, that he almost failed to recognise a now-familiar shrilly voice moulding into words just over his ear:

“…and no, and Nathan, I really don’t care what he meant! He can go fuck himself, that fucked up Brisbane bastard!”

He turned just in time to see Scotty’s eyes open wide and lock up with his. Scotty, who was walking up as Fergus was heading down, had stopped in the middle of the staircase just after passing Fergus, and was attempting to get into the ‘down lane’, but became stuck, because the staircase, though rather wide, was so crowded, that even clone number two, the one who served as the direct cause of the – literally – bloody – fiasco of not even an hour ago, and who was now once again following his friend, pushed him into the back, beckoning him to keep walking:

“For fuck’s sake, would you move?”

But Scotty turned around and pointed at Fergus instead:

“No, that’s that fag! The one that had dumped his shit drink on me!”

Clone number two, who had by then ended up right next to Fergus, sneered contemptuously:

“Well, who do we have here!”

Fergus froze into a stupor looking into Nathan’s narrowed eyes. There was a lot in his face and curly blond locks that closely resembled Jesse’s features, but his eyes had none of Jesse’s racing frenzy. They were, nevertheless, cold, soulless, and full of disdain and also some kind of lust to see someone suffer. Apparently, the earlier incident did not satisfy this lust. After all, he’d only got to shove Fergus down on the floor. 

Fergus looked frantically away from Nathan and down the staircase. Nathan was followed by another blond Xeroxed copy, the one Fergus had the least amount of time to observe earlier and who had, judging by his severe, deep blue, almost doll-like eyes, had the least amount of interest in the outcome of this meeting. He waited patiently, stopped behind Nathan’s back, face pissy but apathetic. They could pounce on Fergus here, or they could let him go. He didn’t care. He was down for whatever they were.

“Would you keep going, Nathan? There’s a security guard right over there!”

It was impossible not to recognise the voice producing this hissing admonition. Right behind the doll-eyes, the last and final clone, the one who’d restrained Scotty earlier on the dance floor and ended up falling into a blanket of broken glass himself, stood at the very bottom of the stairs, one hand on the rail, the other pointing out to the left. 

His look momentarily connected with Fergus’, but he immediately returned it back to his buddies.

“Tell him to keep walking!” – He hissed up at doll-eyes, - “The security man is under the stairs!”

“What?” – Scotty yelped from his position close to the top of the stairs, - “What did you say?”

Fergus turned to him and felt, more so than saw, pure hate oozing out his eyes. Scotty could still very easily sod him from where he was standing. He didn’t have as clear a shot as Nathan did, but he still could. 

Nathan kept looking from Scotty to Fergus, to, Fergus surmised, the injured blond clone on the bottom step. Fergus himself was still stuck staring at Scotty, unable to look away. He could almost feel Nathan’s breath on his neck and the heavy grim look of the doll-eyes on the back of his head. 

In his mind, the injured friend must have won over Scotty in their silent argument on the stairs, because Nathan suddenly turned to Scotty and prodded him into the side:

“Keep going, there’s a guard down there. It’s not worth it, we’ll get him later.”

Scotty immediately twisted his pretty soft face into a disgusted grimace, muttered an obscenity, hesitated for another second, but then resumed his way upstairs. 

Nathan followed, but not before slamming Fergus with his shoulder half-heartedly almost exactly into the same spot he had hit him earlier, sneering into his face, sharp odour of alcohol assaulting Fergus’ nostrils:

“Fagface!”

The pain in his shoulder shot all the way up and down his arm. The doll-eyes came next, grunting contemptuously, without taking his heavy dispassionate look off Fergus’ face. For a moment, Fergus wondered, if this one really was a human being at all, and not some kind of a man-droid. His glassy indigo eyes sure looked fitting.

Suddenly, he felt a soft touch on his throbbing arm:

“Sorry about that.”

Fergus had enough time to turn around from staring at the back of the doll-eyes’ head and come eye to eye with the last blond copy. This one’s eyes could have been blue, but in the dim electric light they looked grey, and they were intent, serious and sad. Some sort of uncanny, roughly painted exhaustion, exasperation even, was permanently ingrained in every feature of his gorgeous face. He was easily the best-looking of them all, if anything because he was different. His features were sharp, his body slender and elegant, his speech clear with no hint of alcohol smell on his breath. He didn’t say anything else, and the whole interaction must have lasted less than half of a second, because the touch of his hand was gone and he was back to following his buddies upstairs. And Fergus had only come to when he himself was finally propelled down to the first floor by the crowd.

He didn’t have to look around to know it.

There was no security guard anywhere close. 

 

His mind was racing. 

Brisbane bastard.

‘We’ll get him later.’

The last blond’s hand on his arm: ‘Sorry about that.’

 

Three times this night he had caught himself thinking he would be touched, and three times he wasn’t, starting with Lena failing to offer sympathy upon hearing about the cause of Victor’s death, Rick not bothering to invite him to hang out with his friend and his girlfriend, and finally, the security guard telling him to get up, instead of helping him up, when he was blacked out on the floor. A simple touch was all Fergus wanted. None of them extended that much humanity to him. They didn’t have to, maybe, but somehow he still hoped that they would. The grey-eyed blond didn’t have to either. And Fergus didn’t expect him to. Yet, he did, anyway.

It wasn’t a fleeting touch that the grey-eyed blond offered him, the kind of a fake, superficial, possibly even embarrassed apology - the type of a thoughtless gesture that just came with the words. His touch, though appropriately brief, had left a warm spot on Fergus arm, as though he had imparted some of his own sweet self onto Fergus, as if that little part of him could help heal the damage his dumb buddies left. 

And he didn’t just lift up his hand to remove it from Fergus’ forearm either. He slid it down the whole remaining length of it until the skin of his palm, moving over the ugly over-sized watchband encircling Fergus’ wrist, had come in contact with Fergus’ own skin in a feather-light brush that left that spot still sensing it and longing for it to return immediately after it was gone. Of course, before Fergus could even begin to grasp what had just happened, the grey-eyed blond’s hand dropped back down to his side as he proceeded to climb up and was gone.

There’s was something about it, though. 

It wasn’t just that this unlikely stranger was the only person to have offered Fergus this supportive gesture he’d apparently been subconsciously craving all evening - it was how the blond lad had done it – and it was not just unusual in and of itself, but it reminded Fergus of something. He’d experienced this sliding arm touch before. Long time ago, done by a different person and in a completely different setting. But intending to impart much of the same sentiment. Which was also found in that person’s tired grey eyes, quite similar in colour to the blond lad’s ones, actually, which were looking into Fergus’ ones with much the same sadness. ‘I am so sorry this is happening’ – psychiatric nurse Alina’s eyes seemed to convey him. 

 

But, as he ventured into the bar area of the first floor, his thoughts immediately turned to the other matter. 

Brisbane bastard.

That’s what caught his attention. The mention of his hometown. Only, of course, none of these clones could have known he was from Brisbane.  
And he was also finally sure of where he’d seen them before. 

Though he may have remembered them, however unlikely it was that he did, their meetings were so short and so far and few in between during all these past few years, that Fergus was sure there was no way they would know him. So they couldn’t have been talking about him. 

But he could guess who they were likely talking about. 

 

Now that he knew he would find him here, he spotted Jesse at the bar almost immediately. It also wasn’t all that hard to do because unlike the upper two floors, the first floor was almost deserted. Jesse, dressed in his plain white tee and black cargo shorts, was slumped over the bar counter, staring intently into its granite surface. The stools on both sides of him were empty. 

Fergus dashed up to him and grabbed him by the shoulder. It was a rather sudden and forceful grasp but Jesse seemed to hardly have noticed. He did not move his gaze from an infinite spot within the depth of black granite.

“Why were you not responding?” – Fergus shrieked and attempted to shake him, - “I was texting and calling you for the past hour!”

Jesse shrugged his brother’s hand off his shoulder:

“Fuck off!”

Clearly, that line of inquiry would lead Fergus nowhere, but luckily, there was another one he was interested in pursuing.

“Who were they?” – He asked hoping that in his alcohol-induced stupor Jesse would answer the question just as simply as it was posed, because if he tried to find out just who Fergus meant and just how he’d met ‘them’, Fergus would not be sure how to respond. 

But Fergus knew his brother well enough to have predicted that one correctly. Or maybe he’d simply figured the situation down to the T.

“Some douchebags from Newcastle” – Jesse took a swig from his beer. 

“What are they doing here?” – Fergus didn’t give up. 

“How should I know?” – Jesse retorted just as mechanically as Fergus had earlier said “no one” when Lena asked him who he’d came to the club with, - “There was a surfing meet here in Sydney this morning, which *I*…” – He verbally underlined that word, offering Fergus a hateful look with his bloodshot aquamarine eyes, - “…had to miss!”

“So what did they say to you?”

“Nothing! Fuck off!”

Jesse attached his lips to the mouth of the bottle again and Fergus took a deep breath:

“We’re going home!”

“Like hell!” – Jesse growled and attempted to shove him, but he miscalculated the distance between himself and his brother and almost ended up toppling over from his barstool instead, - “I’ll drink as much as I want to! I was dry for six months!”

“And that’s how you should be…”

“Piss off!!”

Jesse motioned for the bartender, but as the lad started towards them, Fergus extended out his hand, stopping the man in his tracks with his palm:

“No more for my brother, please, mate, we’re going home!”

Bartender nodded and Jesse’s eyes bulged as his hand, the one that had just released the bottle, clenched into a fist. Just as he was surely about to sod Fergus one, the bartender’s mouth turned into an “o” and he pointed at Fergus’ hand with his chin, confusing Jesse and thwarting his imminent assault:

“Oh my, what happened there?”

At first, Fergus thought that his watchband had managed to somehow slip off and that his disfigured wrist was poking out of his shirt sleeve, but when he retracted his hand to examine it, the watchband was still there, but his hand was covered in blood. 

Of course. 

“I’d cracked a glass” – he haphazardly lied. 

He wasn’t going to announce that he dropped two glasses and then was shoved down into their sharp shards by Jesse’s Newcastle “friends.”

The blood from the cuts, which were mostly on his palm, had largely caked, but several deep ones were still oozing. He snatched a napkin that the bartender proffered him and pressed it into his palm. When he turned his hand over, there was blood on the back of it as well. 

Now that…

That could have been his own blood, of course. After all, his other palm was just as cut up. 

But it could also have belonged to the grey-eyed blond. After all, he had fallen into the glass as well. After all, he had *touched* him. Fergus immediately remembered the blond’s hand on his forearm and the way it slid down his shirt sleeve, over his watch band, and over his hand. It could have very well been the blond’s blood. Fergus couldn’t see it on his shirt sleeve, which was black, but it was clearly there on the back of his hand. But then again, it could also have been his own.

 

With the messy state that his hands were in, it was useless to try and wipe that blood away. Instead, Fergus carefully inserted his napkin-wrapped fingers into his trouser pocket and pulled out his phone. 

“I am going to text my friend that we are leaving.” 

“You don’t have any friends.”

Fergus ignored. 

Jesse, who was only just starting on his beer bottle when Fergus found him, was more than three-quarters done with it when Fergus received Lena’s reply.

“Im outside actually” – It read, - “Rick went to bring car. Waiting in alley. Meet me there.”

“Let’s go” – Fergus jerked Jesse by the shoulder just as he took his last gulp. 

Jesse snarled at him and pointed to his bottle:

“I still gotta pay for this, you know.”

Fergus knew, of course, what this meant. What Jesse was actually saying, was ‘You will close out my tab.’ It wasn’t a plea, or a request, it was a statement of fact. Fergus knew it. 

He obediently gave a few bills to the bartender and then again shook his twin by the shoulder.

“Get your bloody hands away from me!”

Bloody, literally.

“We have to go!”

Jesse oscillated his head back and forth, but then suddenly stated flatly:

“I have to piss.”

“Then go to the toilet and meet me in the alley” – Fergus exhaled exasperatedly, - “Can you do that?”

Jesse, surprisingly, nodded, and, swaying, proceeded into the direction of one of the bathrooms on the first floor. Fergus watched him disappear around a corner and turned to go out the back door.

 

“Well, how is he?” – Lena was asking him outside.

The alley was more of a narrow passageway between the club and the neighbouring building, which was just wide enough for one car. The music from the club was still heard booming in the air and felt reverberating in the walls. Several couples were kissing here, some in the most indecent of poses, other people were smoking or simply sitting crouching against walls, ostensibly tired, though most likely pissed. A small maroon car carefully drove by and stopped in front of the back door, but Lena paid it no attention. After two minutes, a red-haired girl who looked no older than twelve, fluttered out of the club and hopped into the passenger seat. The car departed just as slowly as it had arrived.

In response to her question, Fergus shrugged. Honestly, he anticipated much worse. He was astounded at the relative ease with which he was able to cajole Jesse into leaving. 

Not that Jesse had actually turned up during the ten minutes they had been waiting for. 

The night was chilly and Lena was shivering in her thin, short, lacy white dress, and Fergus felt bad to have nothing to offer her. Rick, he remembered, had a leather jacket, and Fergus was surprised not to find it on Lena. 

It looked like she may have gotten quite drunk earlier in the night, but the coolness of the fresh air was waking her up. Her mascara had fallen down onto her cheeks in small black dots; her lip gloss was gone, as was one gold-plated earring. But she still looked beautiful. He puts his arms around her and she pressed her trembling body into him, attempting to absorb his warmth. Just as he quietly sighed out and prepared to comfortably wait with Lena for his brother and her boyfriend, some familiar figures maneuvered into view. 

They weren’t Rick and Jesse, however. 

He first noticed the doll-eyes somehow, even though he still was as mum as a tombstone and standing just as motionless. Next he saw Nathan. 

They were engaged in a conversation just where the main street met the alley. They weren’t talking to each other though, Fergus induced by the animated and jerky motions of Nathan which received no reaction from doll-eyes. And he was right, because at some point, part of Scotty’s leg in white shorts came in and then retracted from view. The other two blonds must have been obscured by the building. 

At first he was terrified they would see him. Then, he became afraid they might be talking to Jesse. In his current state, Jesse was not in any condition to talk. 

Before he realised it, he had been staring and straining to hear their conversation for evidence of Jesse long enough for Nathan to have, apparently, felt his stare. Upon noticing his head beginning to move, Fergus attempted to turn away and slightly move Lena, who was almost as tall as he was, over to block Nathan’s view. But it was too late. Nathan had seen him. 

Fergus heard his leer all the way from where he was standing. Momentarily, he hoped that he didn’t present that much of an interest to Nathan, for him to consider interrupting his undoubtedly sophisticated conversation with his three carbon copies. But he was wrong. 

Nathan prodded doll-eyes into the stomach and pointed at Fergus. At the same time, Scotty jumped out right in front of them like a macaque, contorted his face and crossed his arms. And finally, the grey-eyed one came out from behind the building. 

Fergus’ blood froze. 

Lena must have felt the muscles tense in his body because she unfolded her trembling arms and looking up into his face, wondered what was wrong. 

Everything.

Everything. 

Everything was wrong, and it was about to only get worse. 

But Fergus didn’t really realise just how much worse, until he saw Scotty’s face literally light up as he exploded in a grimace, pointing at Fergus. Nathan’s mouth also split in a smile. Very much of a Nathan smile. A smile that looked just like his eyes did earlier on the stairs. Hungry to see someone suffer.

But Fergus still could not understand what exactly was happening. Suddenly, there was a conversation taking place; he could see the doll-eyes turn to Nathan, the grey-eyes reach out over Nathan and grab him by the shoulder and then attempt to squeeze himself in between Nathan and Scotty but Scotty was all but jumping up and down, turning his head rapidly from the direction of Fergus to doll-eyes. 

And then, Fergus feared for the worst. Silently praying to God, he half-disconnected from Lena, enough to turn his head to look just behind his back. Despite well over an hour spent in his search for his brother earlier that night, in this particular moment he would have given everything not to see him. 

But he did.

Jesse stood just in the back doorway, and, unfortunately, he, too, had already noticed the ‘Newcastle douchebags.’ His arms crossed over his chest, he not only looked not amenable to disappearing back into the first floor of the club, but all but itching to start. His eyes burned. Bloodshot, yellowed-out whites contrasted wildly with turquoise irises. The vessels in his neck pulsed. 

“Jesse” – Fergus finally disengaged completely from Lena, and latched onto his brother’s arm in an attempt to turn him and push him back into the door. Jesse shrugged him off, without even looking. Repeating his name like a broken record, Fergus resorted to shoving him square in the chest, but his emaciated frame was nothing compared to his twin’s muscular body, and when Jesse pushed back at him, eyes still trained on the blonds, Fergus flew almost a metre and would have landed square on his face if not for Lena. 

“What’s going on? What’s going on?” – She was chanting frantically, looking around with huge wild eyes. She may have not yet understood the extent of the danger, but she felt the fear, no doubt, all the same. 

Fergus had no time to explain because Jesse moved. 

Not back through the door into the club, but forward. Fergus’ blood froze in his veins. 

The blonds were advancing. Leisurely and in a row, as though they were in a cheap street fight movie, run with a much-slowed down speed. They reminded Fergus of the kids from the Village of the Damned. 

Scotty was leering, his mouth moving incessantly with whatever obscenities it was spewing; he looked like a madman talking to himself. Nathan was smiling his patent murderous smile. Doll-eyes looked just as grim as before. Grey-eyes was still behind them, but now they were getting close enough for Fergus to take in his expression. 

In his wide open eyes and open mouth, in every sharp feature of his gorgeous perfect face, the same uncanny emotion was obvious. 

Horror. 

And then Fergus came to know what the grey-eyed blond already knew. It was going to happen. 

Because everything was wrong. 

First they saw Fergus. The one responsible for that ugly brown stain on the front of Scotty’s tanktop and an even more embarrassing yellow one down the front of his shorts. The one responsible for those cuts he could see even from where he was standing, on the knees of the grey-eyes. Although, Fergus held Scotty responsible for that. 

And then there was Jesse. Fergus didn’t know what beef they had with him. Sure, they’d competed against him in surfing tournaments before. But not like Jesse was any good. Not like he ever came to these tournaments sober. And they would have not cared for him ever, at all… if he wasn’t so rude. He was rude to everyone. Always. All the time. To their parents, to Fergus, to doctors and nurses at the rehab clinic, to the judges at his release hearings, to people on the street, to bartenders… he sure as hell had been rude to them before. They’d probably let it slip, earlier. But with an opportunity like that…

And then there was Lena. Never underestimate the effect seeing a gorgeous female draped over an inferior-looking male can have on the lads, who are already looking to show off. No, they would not stoop so low to hurt her. But they would hurt the twins that much more *for her.*

And yes, due to Fergus’ careless behaviour, they connected all three. They connected him to Lena – that one was obvious – but they also connected him to his twin brother when he was beckoning him to retreat. And if he still had any doubts, Scotty took care of that for him. 

Stopping mere metres in front of the three of them, Scotty waggled his brows:

“Well. Look. At. That.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me” – Nathan supported him. 

Fergus made a desperate move to shield Lena and ended up the closest to the blonds. That move had an interesting effect on Scotty’s smile because it all but inverted itself into a scowl. 

Jesse made a step forward. 

So did Scotty.

Grey-eyes was then finally able to venture out from the back, and he latched onto Scotty’s shoulders:

“Scotty, don’t.” - He was looking straight at Lena. But not with an expression that could have been taken to aim to impress her. His tortured eyes begged her to move back. 

Scotty tried to shrug him off, hissing ‘let go’. 

And then something very bad happened. Jesse laughed.

What transpired next, happened so fast, that Fergus had barely any time to react. 

Scotty lunged forward, slipping out of the grey-eyes’ grip, the latter’s hands having left small brown splotches on Scotty’s tank top. But once again, grey-eyes jumped on him, so forcefully now, that he managed to bring him down to the ground in a crouch, Scotty screaming violently:

“Get off of me, man!”

Meanwhile, Jesse had ventured towards Nathan, but before Fergus could see the beginning of their boxing match, he was lifted up into the air by his shirt collar by doll-eyes, who stared at him unblinking with those glassy blues for a good couple of seconds, before throwing him on the ground right next to Scotty. 

Fergus landed on his front almost in a cat-like position, pain shearing through his bleeding hands and ripping through his knees that absorbed the impact. Just as he felt the kick of a – unfortunately – trainer-clad foot land somewhere in the area of his kidney, he noticed Scotty, still yelling: “Let go off me, Andy!” finally escape from the grey-eyed lad’s lock. Grey-eyes – Andy – did not give up though and tried to scramble up his feet but seeing Scotty attempt to elude, threw himself onto his legs, grabbing him by the knees, his bleeding hands slipping down to Scotty’s ankles, but still succeeding in bringing him down. He was screaming incessantly for Scotty to stop. 

Just to the side of them, Fergus caught sight of two pairs of feet by the wall. It looked like Jesse was slamming Nathan right into it. 

Whilst all that was happening, Fergus was able to roll out of the direct line of doll-eyes’ attacks, who was, surprisingly, awfully slow. He was either naturally that way, or, which was more likely, drugged. An opiate, definitely. Heroin, maybe? Or maybe he just didn’t feel that Fergus was worth the effort. 

Wriggling on the ground in an attempt to evade his assaulter’s kicks, Fergus caught sight of Lena. And almost just as he did, all the kicks stopped. And when looked at her, his heart really sank into his stomach. And he understood why he was so suddenly left alone. 

Oh, she was fine, really. She was standing by the wall, crying, her face looking like that of a raccoon, black mascara-filled tear drops falling down the front of her white dress. Down the front of what little you could see of her dress. Because it was largely covered with a men’s leather jacket. 

And when he turned over onto his belly and scrambled up to his knees, he finally saw them. Rick was hanging off the doll-eyes’ neck, short and stout as he was, he was apparently as strong and quick as a monkey, because soon doll-eyes was on the ground, struggling to breathe. Jesse was, to Fergus’ surprise, no longer with Nathan, but rather in the tangle of Scotty’s and Andy’s bodies. Nathan was struggling with yet another male. 

At first, Fergus thought that it was a security guard and was starting to feel relieved until he saw that the lad was wearing a simple grey t-shirt. In fact, he realised, he had already seen him that night. His tall and extremely wide built was impossible to miss and he could have very well been the one whose back Fergus’ leaned on when he suddenly felt light-headed on the moving dance floor. Who did Rick say he met that night by the bar?

A friend who worked with him on ‘Royal Majestic’?

Royal Majestic was majestic indeed; his blows looked so powerful, it was a miracle Nathan’s body didn’t crumble right there, although that probably was because mister Majestic was quite obviously pissed. It looked like he was not even trying to aim, and most of his hits barely grazed Nathan’s body. Or maybe he didn’t think he ought to aim. Maybe he thought his brute strength would make up for that. 

Just as Fergus managed to finally stand up on his shaky feet, doll-eyes succeeded in throwing Rick off of his back onto the ground, Lena’s desperate shriek covering the thud, which Rick’s head most likely made colliding with effaced cement tiles. At that time, praying to God that someone had the wits to call the police and that Rick would end up suffering nothing worse than a mild concussion, Fergus did the only thing he thought prudent to do. He darted away from Lena and right towards doll-eyes who was already heading their way. But that didn’t end up being necessary because the burly Royal Majestic, aiming a sloppy uppercut at Nathan had caught doll-eyes with his elbow instead and the blond folded over in a fit of coughing. 

Jesse, meanwhile, was still furthest from Fergus, still on the ground in an octopus mess with two Newcastle blonds. Fergus was not surprised by that, however, – what his brother may have lacked in skill, he more than made up in rage. Which was further quadrupled when he was inebriated. He could take on two, he could take on three, he didn’t care. Like a ring bull, he saw movement and he barged on. Though, Fergus considered, it only looked, like he was fighting with two. As if to prove him right, Andy managed to extricate himself from the hopeless mess and, foregoing actually standing up, crawled in the direction of the wall. 

Fergus’ attention was then snapped back to the front. Rick was still motionless on the ground. Doll-eyes had regained his composure and attempted to turn to Royal Majestic instead, but the latter, possibly sobered by the sight of his shipmate’s sorrowful state, landed another blow right into the blond’s stomach, doubling him over, and then crushing a two-handed one on his back. Doll-eyes collapsed almost at Fergus’ feet, writhing. 

Around them, mayhem was occurring. Lena was screeching like a wounded fox. Other people, unknown to Fergus, and probably random bystanders, were moving erratically and aimlessly around, some weakly attempting to join the fight, others cheering on, yet others just watching. A black standard four-door, probably Rick’s car, or Royal Majestic’s, was blocking the back entrance to the alley. Another car stood blocking the front. There was still no sign of police or club security. 

Or hell, maybe they were here! Maybe the security guys were around, waiting until the fight would end. Who would really want to intervene and get entangled in a mess of rabid dogs? After all, not like they cared to properly investigate it when Fergus was accosted up on the dance floor. In either case, Fergus could not know, and then, in the next moment, this was the farthest thought from his mind anyway. 

The time seemed to slow down. Just like it did when Scotty first lunged at him when they’d just met under such unfortunate circumstances. Just like it did when he and the blonds met again in the stairway. Just like it did when the lads began all this mess by advancing at them like the Midwich children.

First Fergus saw doll-eyes scrambling up. Distracted by the latter’s movements, Royal Majestic abandoned crouching Nathan to throw a kick into doll-eyes’ side. Nathan though, apparently, was only waiting for such an opportunity as he all but leapt up and struck the sailor in the back of the head. Fergus barely caught sight of what looked like a slab of tile clenched in Nathan’s hand.

Royal Majestic teetered. Fergus thought he was going to collapse, and in fact, he was sure that Royal would, because Nathan was right there again with yet another strike on the head coming up, but just as he was leaping to land it, Andy had jumped up and enveloped him from behind, significantly blunting his momentum and speed. 

All the while, Royal Majestic was turning around to face the assaulter who’d just delivered him that violent blow. And clearly, he was either dazed or not caring, because he threw his right hook at both Nathan and Andy, who, still attached, were in the process of plummeting down to the ground right in front of him. The hook caught Andy right in the face with such force that he’d become disengaged from Nathan’s back, who still ended up at Majestic's feet. 

The impact had thrown Andy backwards and slammed him against the wall, down which he slid, his nose gushing blood into his lap. His upper body careened forward and Fergus became immediately afraid that the impact had knocked him unconscious and that he would fall down, just like that, right onto his face – or – worse - that his windpipe would become flooded with blood – and it is this ‘worse,’ that had finally made Fergus spring into action. He dashed towards Andy, giving Royal a false idea that he was about to finish off his foe, and prompting him to refocus his attention on Nathan. Jesse was still involved in a yelping dog brawl with Scotty in much the same spot that they were in for most of the fight. 

When he finally reached Andy, he’d almost cried out at the amount of blood. Andy’s hands were bleeding, his legs were bleeding and the whole front of his t-shirt was doused with blood. Fergus has never seen that much blood before.

But he has. 

Just before he fainted, when he was twenty-one years old. 

In his second semester of college. 

Though as he lay in that bathtub of hot water, door to the washroom of his parents’ house locked and barricaded from the inside, he really could not have been sure just what percentage of the red substance that was overflowing the tub was already his blood. Just as felt the darkness creep up and his head begin its descent under water, he was hoping the number was high. Or, he was hoping, if he didn’t bleed out, that he would drown instead. 

He did neither. His wrists oozed blood for days after that, saturating and resaturating his bandages, but he didn’t bleed out. And he was no longer allowed to use the tub alone either. 

And tonight, he was dealing with blood again. 

First, his own hands bled. 

Then, Andy’s hands bled. Oh, Andy’s hands and knees bled before that too, probably, Fergus just didn’t know it. But just then, he wasn’t thinking about that. He wasn’t thinking about that at all. 

He was thinking about Andy’s hand on his arm in the stairway. The way Andy’s palm touched the back of his hand. The way Andy’s exhausted sad eyes, even more so than his voice, offered an apology for his drunk friends’ behaviour. 

‘He protected me three times in a row’ – Fergus thought, - ‘He stood up for me three times in one night, and I have not once done anything for him!’ 

He’d managed to squeeze in between Andy’s body and the wall and snaking his arms around Andy’s upper torso, hands clasping over the drenched front of his shirt, and attempted to pull him up to his feet. It didn’t work right away, because Fergus was, though as tall, much, much lighter than Andy, but he struggled again and again, pressing Andy’s back into his own body as hard as he could and pulling back to get some leverage. 

He didn’t know him. Until mere moments ago he didn’t even know his name.

His own bleeding hands became drenched with Andy’s blood which was still gushing out of his nose in a steady stream. Fergus finally managed to get him up to his feet, leaning back onto the wall and clutching Andy’s body towards him. 

He wasn’t even drunk, Fergus thought. He didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want anyone to fight. He was trying to stop this. Whose side was he on? Whose side was Fergus on? Neither of them had wanted to hurt anyone. Whichever side it was, they were on the same side. Maybe, they even were on their own side. The side that had two non-fighting fighters.

Andy was coughing violently and leaning forward over Fergus’ hands and Fergus thought Andy might throw up, but instead, Andy’s hands came to grasp at Fergus’ and pull. 

He was trying to extricate himself. And Fergus would let him go. Andy was not a foe, but he was not a friend either. He was a perfect stranger on a wild night at a club. Fergus felt his grasp loosening even before he allowed his forebrain to decide, whether he really wanted to let Andy go. 

Andy was not going to fight, Fergus reasoned, and if he wanted to go, he’d let him go. What could Andy do, anyway? He might again, perhaps foolishly, decide to try to pull one of his idiot friends off the sailor, but that would be his decision to make. The blonds were his friends. He was free to go. Fergus had no right to hold him. He was only trying to help. 

But Andy didn’t actually go anywhere. He swayed within the circle of Fergus’ slacked arms before re-latching onto his hands. It was then that Fergus realised that Andy had only been trying to preclude Fergus from pressing into his diaphragm, because he coughed a few more times and stopped, blood continuing to cascade down over their entangled arms. No, he wasn’t trying to escape at all. In fact, he was trying to use Fergus for support. His eyes still closed, and his head hanging down, Fergus surmised that Royal’s hit left Andy dizzy, probably, even disoriented. He, Fergus, should have probably just let him sit by the wall, but with the sailor now blinded with rage, Fergus was not dumb enough to be taking the chances. As long as he looked like he was handling a foe, both of them would be left alone. 

 

He rearranged his own hands on Andy’s body, pulling Andy’s ones with them. He put one just over his chest, to prevent his upper body from keeling and he left the other one down by his waist, hoping it might give him some leverage should Andy’s knees happen to give out. Andy didn’t protest. His hands lay on top of Fergus’, fingers snaked right in-between Fergus’. On any other day, it would have looked like a lovers’ handhold. On any other day when both of their hands weren’t covered with a perfectly co-infused mixture of blood. In any other situation, they would look like two lovers, enjoying a tight intimate embrace. In a situation where Andy’s nose wasn’t causing a small burgundy puddle to spread by their feet. 

Fergus held him like that until the end. Andy had become all of his world then, in these moments that seemed to have lasted forever. How remarkable, Fergus thought wildly, pressing this stranger’s back into his own warm body, that time seemed to warp so inexplicably around them. That every time they met, time either sped up or slowed down. As if Andy controlled its flow. Or maybe both of them did, when they were together. And in those few very brief moments when they were entangled like that, Fergus was not sure which effect he most wanted. 

Oh sure, he wanted Andy to stop feeling pain. Hell, he wanted to wipe out his own pain all the same – his sides still hurt desperately from doll-eyes’ kicks. He wanted Andy’s hands to stop bleeding. He wanted his own hands to stop bleeding. And he wanted his tears, that he’d only barely realised were streaming down his cheeks, to stop gushing with just as much force as was meanwhile propelling the blood out of Andy’s nose. Fergus didn’t know what he was crying for, who he was crying for, hell, at some point, he could no longer tell where or just how much he was hurting, and he then surmised that the way they shared these moments, Andy and he, the way they’d mixed in their blood, they must have also come to share the pain. 

And it felt… alright. 

It didn’t feel half as bad. It didn’t feel half as awful as lying in that bloody bathtub did all those years ago. It didn’t scare him, it appeased him. With the frenetic movement and deafening screaming around them, holding onto this lad kept him sane. He supported him physically and Andy somehow gave him mental strength. But it went even beyond all that, really. There was something cosmic, something utterly otherworldly about the way they were frozen in those few seconds, all through the ear-splitting sounds of the arriving police, all through people rushing maniacally past them, that Fergus felt, that if he then closed his eyes, maybe both of them would be lifted right up into the sky and above this trashed up alley and into another world, where they would be safe. Safe, comfortable, alone and together…

Instead he felt someone pulling Andy out of his arms. Before he could even register it, he felt both himself and Andy resisting. They both fought for as long as they could, but their exhausted bodies and their slippery bloody hands could only stay holding on for so long, and suddenly he felt his own body grow cold, followed by a frenzied thought that he might be dying, but then he realised that it was only that Andy was finally yanked out of his grip, - and just like that, he witnessed his strength gush out of his every muscle, folding him into a heap on the ground, and in the last final moments of this slowed-down time, as his back was slithering down the wall towards the pavement, he felt his lips mouth Andy’s name, over and over, repeat and repeat. 

Then, if it wasn’t bad enough and enough to be over right there, there was suddenly Lena at his side, screaming out incoherently half-finished phrases, Fergus only picking out the word “Rick” by reading her lips. He didn’t see Rick anywhere, and in fact, he barely saw anything, because for some reason there was a flashlight in his face, and then both he and Lena were out on the main street, Fergus catching sight of a young male being shoved into the back of a police van, vaguely recognizing him as his brother, and then another lad being pushed towards another van, this one in handcuffs and jerking violently; more so by his movements, than by his appearance, Fergus identified him as Scotty. He also managed just barely to make out doll-eyes on a stretcher being loaded up into an ambulance vehicle, and he wanted desperately to find out whether Andy was there as well, or maybe in a different ambulance, but hopefully not arrested by the police, but Lena, collapsed on the stairs of the club, was holding onto his arm with an iron grip, wailing hysterically, all his pacifying attempts rendered futile, and as he no longer had the energy to try and lift her up, he’d resorted to remaining seated down beside her, mouth voicelessly forming a crazied plea, calling on Andy’s unique ability to tinker with time, and that if he was still there somewhere, that if he would just please speed it up this time around, that God, if it could all just please, just be over already, if it would all just please come to pass…

 

 

“Christ!”

His heart was racing. 

It wasn’t so much the darkness though, it was the silence. 

 

It was as if he’d gotten used to a certain level of noise so much, that the sudden silence had deafened him. He slid his hand down his wet face. It must have been the night of the new moon or something, because the closed blinds allowed nearly no light in whatsoever, and he could barely make out the outlines of the objects in the room in the faint glow of the blue digits of his alarm clock. He took a big breath, willing to still his heart, but the images were so vivid in his head that he immediately had to bring his hands up to his face to examine them. He could see nothing at all, but they were damp with the tears he’d wiped off his face a moment ago. He took another few deep breaths in and whispered:

“Incredible.”

He was sitting up in his own bed, leaned against the headboard, but that did not surprise him at all because he could just make out the outline of a small paperback book, lying cracked open, spine up, on his bedside table. He’d never have lain it like that there himself – “Andy, how many times do I have to tell you that it damages the book? One of these days, you’ll end up breaking the binding, and then…” – He didn’t really know what would happen “ then” and perhaps that’s precisely why Andy kept forgetting these threats. And that’s why the sight of the open book was so comforting. 

Before he could think better of it, Fergus placed his hand on Andy’s shoulder. Andy hardly stirred, but when Fergus slid his palm down Andy’s arm to his elbow, Andy turned over and tried to reach over Fergus’ chest, but as Fergus was sitting up, he only succeeded in hugging his legs. That woke him up, though.

He retracted his hand and rubbed at his face before shooting a sleepy glance at Fergus and reaching over to his night table to turn on the lamp. Both squinted vigorously.

“Fergus?” – Andy exhaled barely above a whisper, - “What’s going on?”

Fergus was just about to answer that he may have dozed off and had a nightmare when his eyes came to rest on Andy’s hands which were covered in cuts and scratches. He felt his heart jump up into his throat and sweat materialize on his forehead as the more-than-realistic image of him holding Andy, their hands entangled and saturated with a sticky cocktail of mixed blood had come back to his mind with such crushing force, that all he could do was open and close his mouth.

He must have looked truly horrendous, because Andy blinked several times and raised himself up on one elbow:

“You alright?”

He was. He was alright, really, because he could see that the cuts on Andy’s hands were at least two-days old, their uneven edges already pulling together to heal, and surely he did not forget that one afternoon, when Fergus was at work, Andy had a grand idea of, without any help, assembling together their freshly purchased brand new oak dresser and then inserting it into the space where the old one had stood. He managed to pull the latter out just fine, but trying to wedge the much larger new one into the liberated space proved quite a hassle. He did succeed in the end, but his hands paid the price. 

These scratches had nothing to do with shards of glass on the floor of a dance club in Sydney…

“… going on?”

Andy was staring at him now, and Fergus allowed himself to just focus on Andy’s eyes, intent, gentle, probing, awash with puzzlement and a touch of concern. The way he laid before Fergus, a thin white linen painting the outline of his tall and slender body, his tan muscular arms contrasting boldly with immaculate covers, his bleached out waves of hair softening the sharp features of his face – made Fergus’s chin quiver a bit, and he turned away from him and blinked back the tears. 

“Fergus!” – The last of sleepy languidness evaporated from Andy’s voice now as he finally sat up and reached one of his scratched hands out to grasp at Fergus’.

Fergus took a couple of deep breaths and turned to him again:

“Do you remember what your mother said tonight at dinner?”

“What??” – Whatever it was Andy was expecting him to ask or say, it probably wasn’t that.

“What your mother said?” – His willpower had failed him and Fergus had to bring his free hand up to swipe a runaway tear from his cheek, - “That you and I are the best thing that had ever happened to each other?”

“Yeah?” – Andy’s voice exhibited evidence of a desperate attempt to understand as he leaned over Fergus, who has once again turned to face the wall ahead, - “Don’t you agree?”

“Definitely” – Fergus sighed out a sob and immediately shut his mouth because Andy instantly squeezed his hand and twisted himself even more to look into his face. 

Fergus inhaled deeply again and started over, - “Well, I was just thinking…. I guess I just wondered what if…. What if we had never met?”

“What?” – Andy dropped Fergus’ hand in surprise, blinking his grey eyes at him.

“I said, I wonder what would have happened to us had we not ever met? Where would you be now? Where would I be?”

He turned to him. He was feeling himself becoming angry, though of course he realised, that Andy could not have had any idea of what Fergus went through just minutes ago, holding onto him for his dear life as both struggled to remain upright on the uneven tiled floor in the dirty alley, blood anointing their interweaved hands, or how he felt his heart being ripped out of its cavity when the police officer had managed to yank Andy out of his grip, bringing Fergus crashing back into the wildly spinning world.

“Uh… I… I don’t really want to imagine that, even” – Andy attempted to smile weakly. 

But that response wasn’t enough for Fergus. It was fine when sailor Rick had responded like that when Fergus presented him with an idea of full-time data entry, but this was Andy laying in the silence of their perfect small bedroom, amidst perfectly white sheets and in perfect comfort, instead of Andy choking on blood while holding onto Fergus’ arms for support. This answer simply didn’t cut it. 

And Andy felt it.

Fergus could tell it by the way he slowly closed his probing eyes and turned away. When he opened them again, they were serious and full of sadness. The exact same expression Fergus saw swim in them when Andy’s bleeding hand had lain on his arm, on the stairs. 

“Are you really asking me…?”

Fergus nodded. He was. 

Sure, there was nothing fair about it alright, there was nothing pleasant or kind. But the haunting images of the night were just way too much for him to bear alone.

“I think this is kind of an impossible question, Fergus” – Andy replied evasively, turning downward his look, - “I mean it’s like asking what if you could go back and undo this or that… how far back are we going?”

“I don’t care” – Fergus replied hoarsely and felt the tears once again well up in his eyes, - “What if my family had never found the buyer for our house in Brisbane? And if they did, what if we didn’t move to Newcastle but to a different town? Different state?”

“Well, Fergus, it’s like asking what if my Dad never chose to settle in Newcastle. Or better yet, what if my Mum never informed him that she was pregnant with me, and chose to have me in Poland instead? What if my Dad never detoured to Warsaw in the first place when he was travelling Europe? I mean… I guess I am just not sure what you are asking.”

“I think that there are some events in life… like some… intersections…. Where any one choice will determine much of your life path from that point on… Where you can make a better choice or a worse one… A choice that could lead you to be happy down the road or a choice that could ruin your life for good… And when I think about my life, I… I don’t know, I guess I am trying to determine… at which particular intersection I made the choice that set me off on a better life track… or if I even made this choice at all, of my own accord, and didn’t just sail along with the current, but I cannot even begin to imagine the scale of the odds that would have us, right here in this bedroom, on this bed, if one of us had somewhere along the way, took a wrong turn. And I wonder as to the chances that we would still have then, at that point to… right it, to… correct it, to fix it, to make it… to make the path still lead us to this…”

“Fergus…” – He could perceive those special notes in Andy’s quiet voice, the undertones of surprise, awe, gratitude, sadness, longing and love. Andy didn’t go on and Fergus intended to continue his ragged line of a philosophical thread, when a sudden memory came flashing into his mind. He turned to Andy, eyes burning:

“It’s like that cat, Andy! Remember the cat? The cat thing you told me about with that long German word?”

Andy blinked at him slowly, but suddenly, his eyes sparkled as well.

“The Schrödinger’s cat? The cat in the locked box, where nobody knows whether it’s alive or dead, and so until someone opens the box to find out, the cat exists simultaneously as both dead *and* alive?” – His eyes dimmed a little, - “Verschränkung. ‘Entanglement.’ The comingling of two realities until the key event of opening the box separates them forever…” – He looked up at Fergus and in his glistening eyes Fergus saw that Andy had finally caught on exactly what Fergus was wrestling with in his mind, - “Yes, and I guess you remember I told you that I was not sure I understood whether waiting to open the box for some time actually had any impact on the outcome for the cat - whether it was just the opening of the box that separated the two realities, or whether time did it too.”

Fergus turned away and nodded:

“That’s just it. And if you believe that there can be several box opening events, there exist several branches of alternate life times… that further branch out as time goes on…” – He thought of adding “and supposedly, these branches are not meant to ever cross, but, occasionally, the mechanism fails and one just might get a glimpse of how things could have turned out” but thought better of it, not only because Andy could not have known anything about his unusually vivid dream, but also because it was inconsequential to his question, - “And what I wonder is if… if you and I had set out on different life paths, because of one event or another… would we still…. could we still… end up… like this?”

Andy looked at him seriously and blinked slowly:

“That’s not a question about Schrödinger, Fergus. That’s a question about fate.”

Fergus didn’t dispute. Andy was better at all these subtle distinctions, so Fergus just waited patiently for his answer. 

Andy turned away, looked up and remained silent for a good minute before giving him it:

“My mother tried to raise me Catholic more or less, as you know. I say “more or less” because we rarely actually went to church and because, obviously, she never had a problem with you and me, but…I always found it hard to think that I was to regard the Bible as the one ultimate truth, especially not when it was first presented to me with pictures of a fat Noah looking very much like a Santa Clause carrying two snub-nosed guinea pigs onto a sailboat. I haven’t even seen a live guinea pig yet at that point” – Fergus chuckled, and Andy smiled, continuing, - “And that was alright, because my mother allowed me to pick and choose what I wanted to believe in. I’ve seen her praying to God on several occasions, mostly in very stressful situations, and, of course, I myself can still recite the Lord’s prayer in both English and Polish, though you and I have not been to church in ten years… And then, this one here, I’ve owned this since I was a kid” – He reached over and touched the crucifix, hanging off an azure-bead rosary draped around a lamp shade on his night table. He paused, - “I can’t tell you for sure whether I believe in the Christian God the way my mother does, but I can swear to you that I have always agreed with her at least on one point” – He focused his gaze on Fergus, - “And that is, that some things are just meant to happen. That, whatever you try to do to avoid them, you can’t. May it be fate or one of those Final Destination things, I don’t know. It can be good and it can be bad. I don’t know why I believe in it, but I do. I always have” – He reached over and once again took Fergus’ hand, this time into both of his own, - “And I can assure you, that no matter which Schrödinger universe we could have happened to have stumbled into, we would have always wound up like this. Well, not exactly like this, maybe not in this flat, or not even in Newcastle, but we would end up together in all of these universes. Sooner or later. I can promise you that. No matter where you would have turned up, I would have found you. In all of these lifetimes, I always would.”

Fergus grabbed him by the back of the neck then, snaking his fingers up through his bleached blond hair and kissed him, tasting the salt of the tears he didn’t know he was swallowing. Or maybe those weren’t his tears. Maybe they were Andy’s. Just like with blood in his dream, he really could no longer tell whose tears they were, but for the duration of the kiss, they belonged to both of them. 

And so he kissed him until he no longer felt the tears sting at his eyes, until the ones that had spilled out onto his cheeks had dried up, and by then, they had both drifted down on the bed and under the covers and were weaved into each other like one single mass. When Fergus opened his eyes, he found Andy’s ones closed, his sharp features relaxed in one blissful reverie. Fergus smiled.

“Or so you say” – He whispered then, almost touching Andy’s lips with his own, and keeping his arm draped over Andy’s upper body – “That in all of these universes, *you would find me*…” – Andy nodded without changing his expression and Fergus smiled again, - “But in some you would not” – He felt, that Andy was about to open his eyes, and prevented him from doing so by pressing another kiss into his lips, - “And those would be the worlds where… *I* would find *you*.”


End file.
